Will those of you with a copy of English and Medieval Studies Presented to J.R.R Tolkien on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday check the photo plate at the beginning of the book and confirm/refute a faux printed signature at the bottom? If one is there can someone email or post here an image of it? Thanks!

Posted on: 2011/1/31 19:43

(edited)

Edited by Trotter on 2011/1/31 22:10:00Edited by Khamul on 2011/10/1 13:21:04

Heh! I was just on his website and found your reply waiting for me when I got back here. Thanks to both of you!

Interestingly (to me) there is actually an indentation of the signature to the verso of the frontispiece on the copy I just got, and it is uneven (deeper on some strokes than others). Makes me wonder what sort of printing process they used - were these stamped on? Or did someone trace the signature off of this particular copy?

According to Scull (Christina Scull, that is; aka Mrs Findegil) - the signature was

'printed by letterpress, and is indented into the paper, as if it might have been written by a pen. In fact the practice of printing signatures below frontispiece portraits is quite old...'('Signatures, labels and values', by Christina Scull, The Tolkien Collector no.15, Feb. 1997. p.18)